I have been writing for Forbes since 2005. Prior to that I covered the business beat for the New York Daily News. Because I've studied both finance and journalism, and because I like both numbers & analysis and sports, what's a more fun job than merging the two, writing about sports from the business side and from the stat geek/number crunching side? I have a BS in business from Boston College and a masters in business journalism from New York University.

Baseball's Billionaire Owners

Baseball’s billionaire club is a fairly small one. Only nine – and most of those take little interest in their club’s fortunes, at least publicly.

In an era of more and more billionaires buying into sports teams, baseball is a relative holdout. And for good reason: Most billionaires got where they are by calling the shots. Unlike, say, the NBA, where a long-term contract on one player can make or break a franchise for years, a major league baseball team runs on a multifaceted model. Minor league operations, international scouting, the lack of a salary cap to partly pre-determine payroll – it’s all better suited to a partnership with divided responsibilities than it is to that fist-pounder in the front office calling all the shots.

Walter O’Malley, Charlie Finley and George Steinbrenner had their day, but a baseball team was a simpler operation back then. Few of the super-wealthy that do buy in choose to play an active role running their teams.

San Francisco Giants’ owner Charles Johnson, 80, is content to look after things at his investment firm, Franklin Resources, while keeping a low baseball profile. Worth $5.7 billion, he lets fellow equity partner Laurence Baer run the Giants as CEO. The arrangement seems to be working out: the Giants draw more revenue per fan in their market than any club in the majors, thanks to an appealing ballpark and two World Series titles in the last three years.

Across the Bay, Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher, an heir to the Gap retail fortune who’s worth $2.2 billion, plays it the same way. Fisher generally leaves things in the hands of partner Lew Wolff and GM Billy Beane, who owns a small piece of the A’s himself.

Others content to blend into the background, at least in baseball: Liberty Media Chairman John Malone, whose company owns a controlling interest in the Atlanta Braves, and Ray Davis, the energy maven who bought the Texas Rangers out of bankruptcy in 2011 but who is happy to cede the local sports spotlight to Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban.

There are exceptions: the Angels’ Arturo Moreno, who made his fortune in billboards, is taking big risks with some of his $1.5 billion trying to keep up with the dizzying pace the Dodgers are setting for the hearts and minds of L.A. fans. Apparently hoping that chicks still dig the long ball in the post-steroids era, Arturo has over $300 million tied up in Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton. Just the type of command decision that can come back to bite you.

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